I could spend these few and insignificant lines thanking those that helped, in some way or another, to make this accomplishment complete. I could thank God, my mother, Scott Boyd, Troy Roberson, Chris Rosenstone, my lovely and patient wife Aida, and many others, but I won’t. They should already know how I feel. What good would it do to say how much I appreciate their involvement, not only with this project, but my life? Would it serve to do anything more than massage their egos?

It’s been several long and dark years since Scott and I have published music, and the emptiness has nearly consumed me. I have had numerous lessons in what the human mind can conceive and endure, and it is far beyond the comprehension of most mortals. There are some words that I could use to describe tribulation – leukemia, suicide, loneliness, angst, despair, betrayal, rejection, litigation, paternity, collusion, corruption, and disgust. I have come to know the meaning of what most would consider unbearable, and have discovered comfort in finding the depths of my inner strength during my trial.

Scott embarked on his own battle without me, and for months, alone, I could do nothing. Truly, as I write these notes, I feel the overwhelming torrent of all of the feelings that I have tried to suppress and leave behind. Even now, it takes what seems an eternity to contemplate and deal with the pain and continue composing. While he was away, tormented by his own affliction, I was creatively debilitated. I could not listen to anything musical. I could not even hear my own music that for so long has been within me as a part of my inner soul. Verily, I say this in all seriousness: I too approached a long, slow, agonizing death at the hands of fate and others’ dark agendas. And yet, though the darkness was surrounding and preparing to consume me, I took one step, and then another, then another, then another….and I crawled from the sheol that my enemies had prepared, to claim vengeance against those that would try to destroy the most basic of human rights.

There are many clichés, but sometimes we truly do not or are not capable of comprehending how much some things mean to us. Sometimes, it takes the realization of losing everything to understand that somehow, at one finite moment, you had the infinity of the beginning and the end there within the grasp of the frail and boney fingers of a once strong and commanding hand. But within me, in my mind, I have found that there is one place that only others of my choosing can exist. One place, impenetrable, that I can go, to escape all of the daily torments and atrocities of what has become, to me, a normalcy that would compel most to madness. This place that I go, that is part fantasy and part reality, which has become the conclusion of my insanity—Skull.